by Charles Gladden
BELIZE CITY, Mon. Dec. 11, 2023
The past weekend was one of the quietest of late in respect to criminal activity; however, a burnt airplane was found in southern Belize over the weekend, and it is suspected to be of narco elements.
Images of the remnants of the damaged aircraft surfaced on social media and were displayed in pieces where it was discovered, in the Corazon Creek area of the Toledo District. Law enforcement officers at the scene saw a clandestine airstrip. These have become prominent in remote areas of southern Belize.
Commissioner of Police, Chester Williams confirmed to reporters this afternoon that the aircraft originated from South America, and it got picked up by radar in Belize and then it disappeared. It was suspected that it had landed in Guatemala on Friday night.
During a flyover conducted by personnel of the Belize Defence Force (BDF) on Sunday, December 10, they witnessed the burnt remains of the plane, approximately four miles away from the Guatemalan border.
“A team of police and BDF went into the area on foot, and I must say that the area is heavily vegetated, extremely rough terrain, and it took them a couple of hours to get to the location. But when they finally got to the location, they indeed came across the burnt remains of a plane in that particular area. Nothing else of interest was found,” he said.
ComPol Williams noted to members of the local media that there has been an increase in airplane activity within the region, and expanded that these players purposely planned the landing of their aircraft near Guatemala.
“So, Belize, again, being strategically located in Central America, bordering Mexico and Guatemala, and Guatemala does serve as a transit point for drugs to move to the North,” he said. “… The trend has always been that it goes directly into Guatemala, and that’s the reason why they choose to land the plane so close to the border area. That way they won’t have to go through much to be able to get the drugs over to Guatemala. But again, it is not far-fetched that they could also use the waterway. There is a river in that area. They could use the river and from the river to the sea and catch the deep waters and they can also go up north. But from what we’re getting from intelligence, it would appear as if the drugs are going directly into Guatemala. From there, they make their way through Guatemala into Mexico,” he added.
Intercepting these narco aircraft has been an issue with the department, especially those that land in the south because the area is thick jungle, which makes it very difficult for officers to traverse.
ComPol Williams expressed that villagers have shown hostility towards officers and it is his belief that they are assisting the traffickers.
“In the Toledo District, the residents are very hostile to the police, and we do believe that some of them are working with these narco-traffickers. We have a basic idea of who these people are, and who are behind these things, and we are constantly targeting them. Last week the police got information about a strip in a particular area down south, and we responded; and upon reaching there, we found spikes and gallons that we believed were going to be used to land a plane in that particular area. So, I believe that was one that we averted [because] we got pre-intelligence -intelligence on it. So, occasionally we get this information; [but] there are some areas where the village residents are extremely hostile to giving the police information,” he said.